That’s the 18th century for you. Girolamo Segato was an Italian naturalist, cartographer, Egyptologist, and anatomist of that time. He’s most famous for discovering how to turn a human corpse into “stone” through petrifaction. Segato began learning science from a very young age. Through his life he participated in several archeological expeditions in Egypt, where he grew a fascination with Egyptian mummification.
He kept extensive notes of everything he learned in this field during that time. When he returned to Europe, he developed a technique similar to mummification, but debatably superior. Instead of just removing the water from the body, Segato’s method appears to have been focused on mineralization, or petrification- basically turning the body to stone. But word spread that he had been using “Egyptian magic,” and he was prompted to destroy all of his notes documenting his method.
Never has anyone been able to emulate it. Many of the cadavers he petrified that weren’t destroyed are still on display at a museum in Florence, Italy. It’s amazing, though, to think that even though the world has seen hundreds of years of technological and scientific progress since Segato’s time, he continues to outsmart the most brilliant scientists today.